How to make your subordinates always want you as their boss?

You may have worked with many bosses, and you may have liked a few of them and hated many of them.
How can you ensure that your subordinates will go all the way for you and want always to work for you as long as possible and even worry that you will leave them someday?
Here are a few tips:

• Show absolute concern for each one of them. You may have a large team, but you will have to set up mechanisms to dialogue with them occasionally.
• Demonstrate and demand full commitment for goals and deadlines.
• Listen carefully in meetings and encourage people to disagree with you.
• Allow team members to disagree with each other, allow the lone voice to be heard and always side with the team member who has a sounder point of view.
• Yield to a sounder view point from your colleagues and demonstrate openness by changing your own point of view.
• Engage actively to solve their problems.
• Critique attacking their behaviour and not them.
• Always be just and fair.
• Even if the whole world is against them, you take their side as long as they are right and the whole world is wrong.
• You should stand against them when they are wrong even though the whole world supports them.

These are some sure fire tips that will endear you to your subordinates forever.
You will be remembered for a long time to come and you may also enter the folklore of the organization as a hero.
Your organization and your teams need such a hero. Will you be one of them?

What to do when we feel low?

We live in a crazy world, in outrageous times, with change happening at warp speed. Some of these changes in our personal lives we welcome with a smile, but there are others that will beat us down and make us frown or even cry.

For many of us the latter variety of changes comes more often than the ones that will cheer us up. What do we do when we get beaten down?

Here are a few tips we can apply immediately to lift our moods:

• We must remember that every trouble has a beginning, middle and an end. It has begun and it will end.
• We should not magnify our troubles by our imagination.
  
• We should cut the recurring cycle of worry and focus on taking steps to solve the problem.
  
• We can choose to involve ourselves with our hobbies and pastimes and use them as a break while we attempt to solve our problems.
  
• We can listen to uplifting music.
  
• We can mingle with people we love, just be with them and be grateful that they are with us.
  
• We can choose to share our woes with a person who will be empathic with us.
  
• We can remember all the struggles which we went through and came clean, well, and successful.
  
• We can use pleasant memory as a weapon to ward off negative thoughts.
  
• We can choose to become bigger than our troubles.
  
• We can pray deeply for guidance and resolution of the problem.
  

We can do all these things while we are actively engaged in solving our problems by taking every step to the resolution of the problem.

We should remember that we have a choice to change our feelings while we attempt to solve our problems because when the dark clouds of our moods lift, we will be able to spot several stars of solutions shining forth. We can hook ourselves to one of the promising stars and sail through the turbulent waters we are in.

Do you learn from your children?

There comes a time in every parent’s life when the equation shifts, and they begin to learn from their children.

Do you learn from your children? I do. This is possible only if you have built trust in the relationship, and you are humble enough to focus and listen to what your children are saying.

If you teach your children in a loving way, sooner, or later they will teach you back. Sometimes they will critique you on the same behaviour you tried to correct in them.

If you actively pursue this, you can put them in command to help you to change your habits.

You will be surprised at how persistent and caring they can be to correct you. This approach has an added advantage-Your children will learn quicker as they teach and monitor you.

It is always a two-way street.

Try this out. You will be surprised how quickly and deeply the bonds between you and your children will grow.

How to feel happy to the core of your being?

When was the last time you felt really good inside? There are different forms of happiness. One of the best ways of gaining happiness is trying to make others feel cared for.
Here are a few tips:

• Do something for others that you have never done for them.
• Help a friend financially when he asks you for help, even though you know the money may never come back.
• Go to an old age home and lend an ear to an elderly person.
• Pray for a stranger.
• Spend time with your child, even if you have a lot of things to do.
• Give the most unexpected help to your spouse.
• Give a gift just for the sake of giving.
• Throw a party and call your friends just for the reason of being with them.
• Find a place of solitude and reflect all the up and down of your life. Express a sign of gratitude that all your fears never materialized, and you are fine even as you think.

There are many times we need to manufacture happiness for us. These are a few ways to do so. If you have more ideas, please do contribute.

What can you learn from the film Karate kid?

I found the film very captivating. There are many scenes in the film that rang a chord in my heart, having lived far away, from my own country, India, in the United States and in Switzerland, I can well understand the struggles, the 12 year old kid Dre Parker undergoes in the ancient land of China.
Here are a few lessons you can learn from the film:

• All cultures other than your culture will seem to jar when you first encounter them.
• You may strike a chord of friendship immediately with a few, but you may also encounter people who are rude to you.
• If you attempt to speak their language it will cut ice faster.
• You cannot push your loved ones to like the culture, they have to strike their equation on their own.
• You may find help from strange places and people you may not even imagine.
• It takes time to get used to a culture.
• Never paint a culture bad based on few individual behaviours. There are people who behave badly in your culture too.
• Every culture has deep mysteries and wisdom from which you can learn and broaden your horizon.
• A burning, positive goal within the context of the new culture can change your perspective completely.
• Search for things you can take into your own culture. The more you take, the better chances you will have to give them from your culture.
• Perfect practice makes you flawless.
• In a competition, winning is not everything.
• Discipline comes before mastery.
• Honesty and integrity will ultimately triumph.
• Winning over your fear of losing is more important than winning itself.
• Every culture is good, you have a great opportunity to learn and grow.

These are a few learning points from the film. If you have observed more, please do contribute.

As I wrote this, I have assumed  that you have seen the movie, The Karate Kid. (2010).http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1155076/plotsummary